Whether you love or hate what the formerly Libertarian Tea Party has morphed into, one thing is for sure, it’s portrayal as a lunatic right wing fringe group by the controlled corporate media and the White House is a complete fallacy, as evidenced by multiple new national polls.

According to the survey, 17% of respondents identified themselves as “part of the Tea Party movement”. Of those, 28% said they were independents and 17% were Democrats, leaving only a slim majority of 57% identified as GOP.

The poll also noted that 80% of Tea Party supporters are dissatisfied with Obama’s job performance, a negative figure 3% higher than that of Republicans who disapprove of the president’s performance.

The major issues driving the Tea Party followers, according to the Winston poll, are jobs/the economy and the exploding federal deficit. a huge majority of 95% declared that they believed Washington “Democrats are taxing, spending and borrowing too much.”

A d v e r t i s e m e n t

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Another national poll by Gallup[4] finds that, although those identifying themselves with the Tea Party are more likely to be employed, conservative men, they are otherwise “quite representative of the public at large,” in terms of race, age, and educational background.

The poll found that opposition to the healthcare bill is perhaps the most distinctive characteristic of Tea Party supporters, with 87% declaring its passage a bad thing.

Finally, a third poll, conducted by Rasmussen[5], finds that 48% of voters believe that the average Tea Party member is closer to their political views than Obama.

Among voters not affiliated with either major political party, 50% say they’re closer to the Tea Party, while 38% side with the President, the survey finds.

A previous Rasmussen survey[6], released last week, found that 47% of voters empathized more with the views of Tea Party members than to Congress. Only 26% felt closer to Congress.

So, whether you be indifferent or for or against the Tea Party, it is way off base to depict it as a stereotypical conservative fringe movement, just as the intelligence insulting dinosaur media consistently has.

Andrew Malcolm of the LA Times[10] comments: “While the inconvenient polls may make media generalizers uncomfortable, it could also discomfit both major parties just seven months out from those crucial midterm elections. Congressional Republicans fare awfully in Tea Party minds, too, despite rhetorical efforts to catch up with the movement at times.”